Date: Sat, 09 Jun 2001 21:08:40 -0600 From: Warner Losh <imp@village.org> To: Mark Hittinger <bugs@freebsd.netcom.com> Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Strange request: Reading RX-50 (aka DEC Rainbow 100) disks Message-ID: <200106100308.f5A38el17955@billy-club.village.org> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 09 Jun 2001 21:52:49 CDT." <200106100252.VAA23587@freebsd.netcom.com> References: <200106100252.VAA23587@freebsd.netcom.com>
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In message <200106100252.VAA23587@freebsd.netcom.com> Mark Hittinger writes: : I'd actually recommend trying to use kermit to get the data out via the : serial port first :-) There is a rainbow kermit out there. Not an option. I have about 100 floppies to transfer. I know I could set this up, but 9600 baud is just too slow. : I remember being able to transfer files between the Rainbow and the IBM PC : using a lower density single sided format - like 40 tracks. This was in : MSDOS world only and not CPM. I'd bet there are utilities on simtel20 that : would read a CPM format floppy in 40 track format. I formatted them on the : IBM PC in low density mode and then wrote data to them on the Rainbow. Well, I could use the IMPDRIVE driver that I wrote for the 720k low density floppy and transfer things that way. I don't want to do that either. While less painful than serial, it is still painful. There was a driver for DOS that would do this, but I don't have DOS on my machines. This tells me that the 1.2M drives will read them w/o a problem. Writing I know is a problem due to different head technologies used between them. : If you can find someone with a PDP-11 or a MicroVAX unix system somewhere : you might be able to just dd them. I do have the options of connection the hardware up to the floppy controller in my desktop too :-). I have both the RX-50 drives, as well as a pair of TEAC FD55 drives (that do the same data rate as the RX-50's, with the same heads, but with only one drive per spindle and two read heads instead of one). Trouble is, it looks like our floppy driver doesn't grok single sided 400k disks :-(. That's what I'm looking to hack and advise on how to hack. : I still have my Rainbow and I have to use an air blower to get rid of dust : in order to get the floppies to even read at all anymore. My apple ][ : floppies still read solid with no air blower. I had to use the air blower as well, but most of the disks read after that :-). Warner To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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